Fun Friday, Conference and Learning some DIY!!

Last friday we had such a fun day with some of our new friends in this area.  They have 3 daughters-pretty much the same ages as my older 3 so it works out great!  The kids had school off for the day and we decided to get together and bake some little goodies and put together a little tea-party for lunch and then go swimming.  Before they came, the kids and I ran to Winco-I am slowly becoming a fan- and grabbed a few things for conference treats-which was super fun!  I let each kids pick any one bulk cereal and get a small bag full to snack on and then I got Jon a huge bag of their granola (which is delicious).  We also got some blue-berry muffin mix and a few other things!  The little bags of the kids cereal were each under $.50!!  A win-win because it was super cheap, super fun, a great fun snack, and the kids thought it was so cool! 

We got home just in time for our friends to come over.  The older girls made the blueberry muffin mix into mini-muffins, the younger two helped me make biscuits and the middle two-they were pretty happy to just run off and play and didn't want to help much in the kitchen, which was probably good because we were on the crowded side, but we are good at that!  We cut up fruit and carrots small and set out the little dishes.  We also cut up some little cheese slices and some peanut butter and jam in small containers.  It looked really cute and it actually all tasted quite delicious!  The kids all had a really fun afternoon together swimming and playing and I really enjoyed visiting with their mom-so it was all-around a nice day.

--pictures will follow soon--

Saturday and Sunday were General Conference-and quite good to listen to.  I didn't hear it all (I have small children and I fell asleep a bit) but I really enjoyed it.  I am so glad I can re-listen to it any time on lds.org and also re-read it any time in the Ensign!  There were many powerful and inspiring talks that I am excited to study more and apply the lessons and guides taught in my own life.  I remember one thing that I really want to do is make a copy of the quote from President Monson's closing remarks on my wall.  They were very meaningful and powerful,

"I invoke the blessings of heaven upon each of you. May your homes be filled with peace, harmony, courtesy, and love. May they be filled with the Spirit of the Lord. May you nurture and nourish your testimonies of the gospel, that they will be a protection to you against the buffetings of Satan."
President Thomas S. Monson, April 7, 2013

His entire closing remarks were awesome and a perfect close to all the good teachings we had just been hearing the past 2 days.

This week I have really been working on focusing on living within our means-a constant struggle for just about everyone, especially for everyone with children and a home to take care of.  There are always "rainy days" it seems, but I know we can get on top of things and get it figured out.  I have also come to learn that Heavenly Father will help us and guide us, but it does take so much patience, effort, hard work, and a lot of time-ie: a lot of patience.  I have come to realize that money means nothing to Him.  It just does not matter if we are rich or poor-and I know that, but I hate having debt and even though it's not a lot, I have a hard time with it because it seems the second we get out of debt we just get right back in-cars and medical are our main Achilles heel.   I have come to the realization that that is not going to change-we are always going to have medical costs and we are always going to have vehicle costs and it's only going to get more as our kids get older and need dental attention and whatnot. 

So it's back to the drawing board of my life goal: be a stay-at-home mom and run my household well and figure out how to do this on less than I already am.  I have done and still do coupons, but I also have changed a lot of our eating habits since we moved to AZ-more healthy-and coupons don't help too much in that area.  They are great for all the other things-household and personal care items and the times that we get things that aren't healthy (cause yes, I still buy junk food at times-we still celebrate parties in many traditional ways because we enjoy it, ie: chips, soda, cake, treats, etc.).  So I am in a transition right now-trying to decide if my newspaper subscription is worth it-is this a way I want to cut back and does it really pay off?  In my efforts in this area this week I have discovered some things that I have heard about but never really looked into. 

At this point I don't have a solid answer, but I am excited about what I have learned and made so far and that is more DIY items for the household and personal care items-and even for a non-healthy item-american cheese-not processed, but you make it yourself (from regular cheese-essentially making the soft velveeta cheese block you can buy) so that it tastes like the processed kind-more fun than anything with the kids and for our toasted cheese sandwiches last night--anyway, I made homemade laundry soap and homemade dishwasher tabs!  I am way excited about how easy this was and how cheap it was!!  I looked on-line at many recipes and they all are very similar so I figured the main two ingredients in every recipe was the super washing soda and the borax.  What was used for the soap was different in many recipes.  I want to try another recipe, but I didn't have the stuff (I will say that I did not have borax and super washing soda, but I knew I wanted to try to make soap and I knew those were in it, so I picked those up while at the store and they cost a total of $7).  In my looking there was one site that I kept going to that had pretty much exactly what I was looking for in many different areas and here is the link for the laundry soap:  Laundry Soap

Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap (the light blue liquid in the large arrowhead water container)

 I used the dishwasher tabs recipe from that site as well, only I tweaked mine a bit after reading comments on it and because I was trying to make do with what I had and my soft water.  I only made half a batch and I measured out the 1 TBLS into the ice-cube tray compartments and mini-muffin pan to let it dry (in the link, she filled them full and she did not use real-lemon, she used her essential lemon oil, which I don't have.  I also cut the salt in half because I have soft water and I added 1 TBLS dawn to the mixture rather than adding 3 drops when I start the load.  We will have to see how it works! 

Homemade Dishwasher Tabs (drying in the ice-cube tray and mini-muffin pan)

It has been really fun for me to try these out and find even more ways to spend less money!  I am going to explore soap and shampoo next!  With our swimming-pool we are going through both of those items quite a lot lately and the summer hasn't even really begun!  It is always a rewarding feeling to make something for your home that you regularly buy.  I am very pleased with the laundry soap-it washed my laundry up really well.  I have a batch of dishes washing right now to test out my dishwasher tabs that I made today.  I need to buy a few ingredients before I can make the soap and shampoo, but I am thinking I am liking this homemade stuff which I am also sure is far better for you anyway!